d his heart, and ravished his judgment. All the same,
fifty pounds was fifty pounds, and goodness knew how much more; and what
did he know of Mrs. Larne, after all, except that she was a relative of
old Heythorp's and wrote stories--told them too, if he was not mistaken?
Perhaps it would be better to see Scrivens'. But again that absurd
nobility assaulted him. Phyllis! Phyllis! Besides, were not settlements
always drawn so that they refused to form security for anything? Thus,
hampered and troubled, he hailed a cab. He was dining with the Ventnors
on the Cheshire side, and would be late if he didn't get home sharp to
dress.

Driving, white-tied--and waist-coated, in his father's car, he thought
with a certain contumely of the younger Ventnor girl, whom he had been
wont to consider pretty before he knew Phyllis. And seated next her at
dinner, he quite enjoyed his new sense of superiority to her charms, and
the ease with which he could chaff and be agreeable. And all the time he
suffered from the suppressed longing which scarcely ever left him now,
to think and talk of Phyllis. Ventnor's fizz was good and plentiful,
his old Madeira absolutely first chop, and the only other man present a
teetotal curate, who withdrew with the ladies to talk his parish shop.
Favoured by these circumstances, and the perception that Ventnor was an
agreeable fellow, Bob Pillin yielded to his secret itch to get near the
subject of his affections.

"Do you happen," he said airily, "to know a Mrs. Larne--relative of old
Heythorp's--rather a handsome woman-she writes stories."

Mr. Ventnor shook his head. A closer scrutiny than Bob Pillin's would
have seen that he also moved his ears.

"Of old Heythorp's? Didn't know he had any, except his daughter, and
that son of his in the Admiralty."

Bob Pillin felt the glow of his secret hobby spreading within him.

"She is, though--lives rather out of town; got a son and daughter. I
thought you might know her stories--clever woman."

Mr. Ventnor smiled. "Ah!" he said enigmatically, "these lady novelists!
Does she make any money by them?"

Bob Pillin knew that to make money by writing meant success, but that
not to make money by writing was artistic, and implied that you had
private means, which perhaps was even more distinguished. And he said:

"Oh! she has private means, I know."

Mr. Ventnor reached for the Madeira.

"So she's a relative of old Heythorp's," he said. "He's a very old
friend of